To get things working I had to set the "nomodeset" option in the Grub2 (boot loader) configuration.

When using the default kernel-mode-setting (KMS) option in Ubuntu 9.10, users with Intel 82852/855GM cards will find that they are unable to use the Xv extension for playing videos. This may show up as high CPU usage or stuttering during video playback, or a failure to play videos at all with some applications. As a workaround, users can add the option nomodeset to the kernel boot options in the grub config (for GRUB 2: edit /etc/default/grub and add nomodeset to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX, then run sudo update-grub; for GRUB 1: edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and add nomodeset to the line beginning with # kopt=, then run sudo update-grub), to disable the use of KMS

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Our first application we call the Better Business Card for Android. This product grew from the idea that if you have a smart phone, you shouldn't have a dumb business card. The goal is to merge the purpose of the business card with the capabilities of your mobile phone.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

I upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) today. The whole process, including downloading about 1 GB worth of packages, took little more than an hour. And so far it's flawless. I wonder if the upgrade to Windows 7 is similar?

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The new phone required signing up for a new T-Mobile account, in addition to my Verizon account. Now I wish Verizon would hurry up and start offering Android phones. It looks like the first will be the Motorola Sholes.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Monday, August 3, 2009

Simple allows programmers to quickly write Android applications by using the components supplied by its runtime system. Simple programs are form definitions (which contain components) and code (which contains the program logic). The interaction between the components and the program logic happens through events triggered by the components. The program logic consists of event handlers which contain code reacting to the events.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Wow, Google's announcement of Google Chrome OS, a Linux-based operating system for netbooks on up, has certainly sparked a lot attention.

A few of my thoughts in no particular order:

I have yet to see an software that runs "in the browser" that is anywhere near as good as my IDE for development

I love Ubuntu, but I would consider using a Google OS, but only if its better

Apple doesn't care much

Add this to the long list of things that is chipping away at Microsoft, but it is no nuclear bomb

One terrible article I read said "this is the beginning of an era of Google dominance, the likes of which we’ve never seen before." By "the likes of which we've never seen," he really means "since Microsoft was so dominant less than a decade ago." And he thinks "Apple is shaking in their boots." Wrong, wrong, wrong. I think Apple absolutely loves it when Microsoft and Google pick on each other.

Whatever... it's exciting to wonder and imagine, but we'll have to wait six to twelve months to see how exciting this announcement really is.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

I'm not an iPhone hater, I'm really not. I definitely understand the appeal and right now iPhone is the undisputed champion of smart phones. But it's just a matter of time before more open (e.g. open-source) platforms take back a lot of ground. I'm betting on Android.

Up until recently Google App Engine only had pre-1.0 Django support built-in. You could of course jimmy it to work with 1.0, but it was a little unnatural. Now with GAE 1.2.3, Django 1.0 support is baked in. Google App Engine + Django = Nice!

Monday, June 15, 2009

Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, is launching a new project to improve the usability of the platform. The developers aim to identify and resolve 100 minor bugs that negatively impact the Ubuntu user experience before the release of the next major version in October.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Google Maps API for Flash lets Flex developers embed Google Maps in Flash applications. Similar to the JavaScript version, this ActionScript API provides a number of utilities for manipulating and adding content to maps through a variety of services, enabling you to embed robust, interactive maps applications on your website.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Flex-Spy allows you to inspect and dynamically change most properties and styles of the visual components in your Flex application. You can - for example - try out a specific width or a background color for your component before changing it in your code.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

I am now the proud, but reluctant, owner of the Adobe Flex page at Mahalo.com. I'm not sure if I like that anyone can claim any topic, but I plan to be a good steward of the page. Also, I am willing to hand off ownership of the page to a deserving, Adobe-employed maintainer if asked.

Monday, June 1, 2009

One great thing about Linux is that you can find efficient command line tools for just about anything. Currently I've been using ImageMagick's convert command line tool to convert all the pages in a PDF to separate images of just about any format. It's great and takes almost no time.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

The Flex After Dark website has been updated and is now using 960.gs, the CSS framework. I have to admit, at first the idea of a "CSS framework" just sounded kind of ridiculous. But after struggling with semi-complex CSS layouts over a couple of weeks, I started to get it. Overall, I'd recommend looking into a CSS framework, and 960.gs seemed the best simple-to-effective ratio for me.

I got my first app up and running Google AppEngine (GAE) this week. Overall the experience was pretty good. The only hangup was that it took a while for the app's indexes to build (over an hour). But after that, everything is humming.

I will do some more lengthy write ups in the future about the application and the experience, but for now I'll summarize:AppEngine + Django = Nice.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Dropbox is a free, ridiculously easy service for syncing files across computers. If you use more than one computer regularly (e.g. desktop, laptop, office) it will painlessly keep files in your "dropbox folder" on each system synchronized.

How it works:

Install the executable (it stays in your sys-tray)

Select your "dropbox folder" on your system

Drag files into the folder

Booyah, you're in sync

You can even browse, download, and remove files from the web-based interface. They've done it right.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Ubuntu 9.04 is here! I plan to upgrade to Jaunty Jackalope this weekend. Last time I upgraded from 8.04 to 8.10 it took a few hours, but mostly for the downloading. Overall it was an easy and pleasant experience. I'm looking forward to trying out the latest version of Ubuntu and Gnome.

If you're still using Windows... why? Do yourself a favor and try out Ubuntu. You can download it, put it on a CD/DVD and try it without having to install it. You'll thank yourself (and the thousands of developers behind Linux).

Monday, April 20, 2009

Haystack is a pure-Python library for adding search to your Django application. It has support for Whoosh as well. I'll be looking into this as a possibility for Flex After Dark's search functionality.

Monday, April 6, 2009

I'm using a Python package called CreoleParser extensively on the Flex After Dark website. The package helps with parsing Creole, a wiki markup syntax. It is a truly excellent package in terms of functionality and organization.

I'm a big fan of board games, including Monopoly. The problem is I can never get anyone to play with me. I guess one reason why is because I find articles like the following interesting: a surefire strategy to winning a game of Monopoly (http://www.amnesta.net/other/monopoly/).